The prior art, for example EP 07 679 68, discloses the production of an electrical discharge lamp, in which at least one sealing region arranged on the discharge vessel is produced by forming a first seal and subsequently a second seal, the first seal consisting of a region of the discharge vessel material shrunk on itself and the second seal consisting of a pinch.
The shrunk seal fully encloses a connection between an electrode projecting into the discharge vessel and an electrical feed supplying the electrode with current, while the pinch only extends over the outer region of the electrical feed.
The electrical feed itself is advantageously a metal foil made of molybdenum, which includes a coating in order to minimize oxidation of molybdenum on contact with oxygen.
The production of such a coated molybdenum foil is known, for example, from DE 102 00 005.
A disadvantage with these known discharge lamps, however, is that using coated molybdenum foils entails the risk that the purity of the electrode will be contaminated or the interior of the discharge vessel will be polluted during production.
It is however also possible, as is known from the prior art, to use a foil made in two parts which has a coated side and an uncoated side, the uncoated side being connected to the electrode so as to prevent contamination of the electrode. Such a foil, however, is expensive and time-consuming to produce.